Do you have a vintage cookbook you love? Maybe one from decades ago, like the 1960s or 1950s or even earlier? A cookbook handed down from your grandmother to your mother to you? And can you sell it to me?
Argh, I’m sorry! That was incredibly rude. I have a tendency to blurt first and think later. But I’m also really nervous. I just opened Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbook and Kitchenware Shop in Bon Vee Culinary Museum, the largest mansion in New Orleans’ Garden District, and I really, really need it to succeed. I’ve collected vintage cookbooks since I was a teenager, so the shop is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Well, at least one I’ve had for ten years, since I’m a whopping twenty-eight years old. “So young to be a widow,” as people tell me over and over again.
You know how I said I tend to blurt? I also sometimes make impulsive choices. Like marrying a struggling, self-involved actor. With his career – and as it turned out, our relationship – going nowhere, Chris started filming dumb stunts and posting them on the internet. He took the name Chris-azy!, and suddenly became an internet star. Sadly, while doing the Marshmallow Challenge where the goal was to see how many marshmallows he could stuff in his mouth, he choked on one and passed away. We were separated but not divorced, hence my status as a “young widow.” On top of that, I found myself out of a job when the billionaire whose collection of first editions I managed was arrested for running a Ponzi scheme. Talk about needing a fresh start, huh?
Yikes, I’m three paragraphs in and I haven’t even shared my name with you. Focus, Ricki! And now you know my name is Ricki, lol. It’s short for Miracle— full name, Miracle Fleur de Lis James-Diaz. I was born a preemie at New Orleans’ Charity Hospital. My birth mother disappeared and I was adopted by a NICU nurse, my beloved mom Josepha. She named me Miracle because my survival was miraculous. My middle name, Fleur de Lis, comes from the iconic symbol of New Orleans. And I got the hyphenated last name when I was around seven and Mom married Luis Diaz, a grip working on a film shooting on location in the Big Easy. We moved back to Los Angeles, where Dad lived and I was raised. But I’ve returned to New Orleans, the home of my heart. And now that I’m back in the Big Easy, I may finally be able to solve the mystery of my birth parents.
So, here I am, a shop owner living in the Irish Channel, across the street from the world’s hottest celebrity chef. (We’ll see where that goes, if anywhere.) I love my new career, I love Bon Vee, and I love my co-workers. Well, most of them. There’s a tour guide named Franklin Finbloch who I don’t trust at all. Books and items disappear from my shop whenever he pays a visit. Speaking of which, I wonder what happened to my can opener from the 1930s? The one with the dangerously pointed tip? You could seriously cut yourself on that thing.
Or even kill someone.
Bayou Book Thief, A Vintage Cookbook Mystery #1
Genre: Cozy
Release: June 2022
Purchase Link
A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Ellen Byron.
Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s teen mother disappeared from the hospital.
Ricki’s dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation – collecting vintage cookbooks – into a vocation by launching the museum’s gift shop, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a box of donated vintage cookbooks contains the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.
The skills Ricki has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki’s past as curator of a billionaire’s first edition collection comes back to haunt her.
Will Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success . . . or a recipe for disaster?
About the author
Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty Awards for Best Humorous Mystery. Bayou Book Thief will be the first book in her new Vintage Cookbook Mysteries. She also writes the Catering Hall Mystery series under the name Maria DiRico.
Ellen is an award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. An alum of New Orleans’ Tulane University, she blogs with Chicks on the Case, is a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America, serves on the national board for Mystery Writers of America, and will be the 2023 Left Coast Crime Toastmaster. Please visit her at ellenbyron.com.
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Ellen has generously offered to give away one print copy of Bayou Book Thief. To enter, please leave a comment below. One entry per person and the giveaway is limited to U.S. residents only. Giveaway ends June 10, 2022. Good luck everyone!
All comments are welcomed.
Okay. I am a stickler for details so the first mystery is how old is Ricki? Is she 20 or 28? Because Ricki says she’s 20 but the book synopsis says 28. Setting that aside, the book sounds amazing and I can’t wait to read it…after I am the lucky winner lol. Just trying to stay positive and manifest a winning destiny. 😉 Congratulations on the book birthday Ellen!
OH NO! Typo! She’s 28. Thanks for catching that.
I love this voice! Picking up my copy today.
Edith, thank you!!!
Sounds like another fun read from Ellen Byron.
Thank you and here’s hoping!
I have loved the Cajun Country Mysteries (as only a born and raised Iowan whose adult life is all New England can, as it opens a window to a completely new world) and I am delighted to find this new one.
Oh, I’m so glad to introduce you to new worlds!
I can’t wait to read this!
Thanks, Brenda!
Ellen Byron is one of my favorite authors. I was sad to see the Cajun mysteries end and I’m looking forward to starting the new series.
Will read this as soon as I finish my class, which involves intense reading. Will need a pleasant break and this sounds like it will fit the bill.
I hope it gives you a break. And good luck in the class!
I love Ellen’s series written as Maria diRico and can’t wait to read this one. Thanks for the giveaway and congratulations to Ellen on the new series!
Thanks so much, Autumn!
Got my copy yesterday and can’t wait to read it.
Old cookbooks are the best! Been looking forward to this new series!
Nora-Adrienne, you da best!
I’ve been collecting vintage cookbooks since I was a pre teen (in 60s now) so I have a zillion and like Ricki i love to read them, but don’t cook from them. Omg, I love when cozy mysteries feature cookbooks and love this new series! Great world building , fun characters and oh, reading about the Garden District, poor boys, Napoleon House pimms cups, the streetcar, it was like visiting New Orleans again ! I’ve already pre ordered the next book and hope there will a dozen or more in this series!
Congratulations on the new series. I’m excited to read this!!
Thank you!!
I love all of Ms. Byron’s work. Can’t wait to read Bayou Book Thief!! Thanks for the chance to win a print copy.
Linda, thanks so much!
Thanks to Sue for pointing out my typo. Ricki is twenty-EIGHT years old!
Oh boy! Another series set in a once very familiar location. I used to spend a lot of time in the Garden District and in the Quarter. But that was ages ago. Memories! I can’t wait to read this, Ellen!
I love that you know the area, Pat!
Sounds like another good one!
I sure hope so! *Fingers crossed emoji.*
I love anything about New Orleans, and love the idea of vintage cookbooks as a theme
Then I think you’ll really enjoy this book, if I do say so myself!
I am a fan of your books! Thanks for offering this giveaway!!
thanks, Linda! Good luck!
I won’t enter a giveaway because I NEVER win . I hope my library gets this in someday because I love vintage cookbooks and own my Great Grandmothers early 30’s Good Housekeeping Cookbook with her writing inside, Grandmothers cookbooks and Mothers cookbooks. I just gave away to Goodwill a stack of vintage cookbooks from the 60’s and 70’s this week.
Somewhere someone like me is salivating over those cookbooks you gave away! And I’m sorry you never win. Neither do I!
I’m loving this book. I think you will have another award coming your way!!
Sue, thanks so much!! LOL, here’s hoping. 😉
Sounds like a fun new series!
**** WINNER ****
Bayou Book Thief is Cozy Cat Reviews
Congratulations!